A couple of hours later I was touching down in New Zealand. Jen a great friend from my drama school days in Cardiff was waiting for me as promised with a 4x4 jammed with fashion ranges and just enough room to squeeze my backpack in. It was 8pm and she was on a sales trip, which now meant I was on a sales trip, so I literally hit the ground running.

Mission : see the whole of New Zealand in 4 and a half weeks while making Jen lots of money.

Nice.

The next four weeks were to sweep past in a blur of driving, more driving, hanging out in nice motels, helping set up the range on rail (or dropping it more likely in my case) listening to badly scratched CD’s whilst doing even more driving and singing the Grease soundtrack or Maroon 5 at the top of our voices.

New Zealand. My view of it and how I was to see most of it saw over the next four weeks.

The journey went something like this:

Aiport to Wahihi on my first night where we did a lot of catching up, I laughed at all the weird Maori town names (Papatoetoe!?!) and Jen smoked a lot of cigarettes.

Day 2, Dive to Tauranga/Mt Maunganui for the weekend to visit some shops (clients) and for her grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary dinner which it was an honour to be invited to.

Jens' grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary dinner.

Me and Jen

It also occurred to me the day of arriving in Tauranga that another good friend Showbiz Clare lived somewhere in New Zealand and I should find out where exactly it was she lived. By pure coincidence it turned out she lived right here in Mt Maunganui! So I took the opportunity to squeeze in some time that weekend with her and her boyfriend Paddy who took me for a surfing lesson which was great fun. I wouldn’t say I was a natural, but I didn’t do too badly for my first lesson. Standing up on the board was no problem; it was just staying on it for longer than 5 seconds.

Claire and Paddy

View from the top of Mt Maunganui and the bay I learnt to surf in.

My favourite Fern trees, found all over the North Island.

The closest I came to a picture of me actually surfing.

After not enough time with them, but on a promise to come back before I left, Jen and I continued our road trip with a beautiful coastal drive through Whakatane and Gisborne - the first city to see the sun in the world, and spent the night in Napier a beautiful town known for its art deco housing and antique shops. Here I learnt the art of the hotel spa bath, ate yummy Tapas and went for a morning run along the beach where I caught the end of the sun rise in the second town in the world to see it.

Me and My spa. A reoccurring and much loved theme for me in New Zealand.
God this backpacking thing can be hard work!

The next day we set off cross country to Rotorua, via Lake Taupo where I left Jen to work and hiked around most of it. Rotorua is home to the main traditional Maori cultural centre which I visited, and houses the famous hot springs mud pools and geysers.

Lake Taupo.

Me at and the geysers at Rotorua.

Then it was another costal drive to Te Kuiti, Taranaki, and onto Palmerston North, where John Cleese once claimed that "If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick." A bit harsh on the place I thought, especially as we stayed in a pretty cool hotel there, one of my favorites in fact. It was called Camelot and we had our own unit all to ourselves. Actually it was more like a house with a hotel room, it had an upstairs area, separate bedrooms, and a spa bath of course! This was definitely the type of backpacking I like!

Next stop was Wellington where I spent most of my time in Te Papa Museum learning about New Zealand and Maori history. I also pre-booked my ticket for the ‘Record Breaking’ Lord of The Rings exhibition that was reopening after an international tour the next day. It was a fantastic exhibition, one of the best I’ve ever seen. That night we went for dinner with one of Jen’s best friends Jake who works for Peter Jackons Weta Workshop and who was one of the main creators of the CGI Gollum on the Lord of the Rings films. I’d been told that everyone in New Zeland worked, did something for or was in LOTR, and if they didn’t they knew someone who did. It was only a matter of time before I met someone myself.

Jen and Gollum creator Jake

It was now Easter Friday and our tour of the north Island was over. In order to get to Queenstown where Jen lived by in time for the holiday weekend we had a massive journey ahead of us. We caught the ferry to Picton in the south island and drove to Nelson where we spent the evening with friends of Jen. Here I had one of my most memorable nights in NZ. I discovered the delights of Feijoas and more importantly Feijoa flavored vodka, had another spontaneous party courtesy of my ipod, won a chair dancing competition, was caught of guard by some spontaneous breakdancing. We ended the party in the outside hot tub, much to the delight of the neighbors as it had become a very messy evening. One I won’t forget in too much of a hurry.

With a very sore head and little sleep the twelve hour journey ahead of us to Queenstown the following morning was a living hell. We stopped along the way to see if the yellow eyed penguins were around, but unfortunately it wasn’t the right season. We also stopped at the pancake rocks, but it was low tide so the blow holes weren’t raging. By the time we got to Franz Joseph it was too late and too dark to see the glaciers and we didn’t have enough time to stop and see the fire flies. :( Not such a productive day on the tourism front. Still, we made it to Queenstown before it got to horrendously late and Jen was home for the first time in three weeks. Mission accomplished.

Pancake rocks

We hung out in Queenstown for the holiday weekend at Jen’s place which had an amazing view of the lake. Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world, home of the bungee jump and every other kind of adrenalin-rush based activity you can think of. Gareth (Jens’ boyfriend) worked as a river boarding guide and had offered to give me a free trip. Call me a wuss, but I thankfully declined. It was COLD here. Very very cold. There was a noticeable difference in temperature here in the south island from the north and a huge one since being in Australia 10 days before. It was a very surreal feeling to see leaves falling OFF trees in the middle of April and to have autumn colours everywhere when you look.

Jen and the view from her aparment.

Autumn in April?

I spent most of the weekend sleeping, chilling and being shown various locations at Deer Park Heights where scenes from The Two Towers (the second Lord of The Rings film) was shot.

The river Gareth does his river boarding trips on which is also the river featured at the end of the LOTR first film. (The one the fellowship boat down with the statues of the kings on either side, you know the one I mean!)

Aragorns Rock (where he gets dragged over the cliff in the second film)

Deer Park Heights was one of my favorite places in Queenstown. Not only were some cool scenes from the movie shot here - like the cool scene where legolas jumps back on his horse before the battle on the way to Helm’s deep (sad that I know this stuff sorry) but we got to hang with and hand feed these cool piggies….

…the fattest goats I’ve ever seen in my life....

Gareth and the fatties.

.. deer….

and these bizarre looking creatures…

So after a relaxing Easter break it was off again. Next stop the most southerly part of the south Island and the closest to Antarctica I’ve ever been, Ivercargill. Then we moved on to Dunedin where we had a quick pit stop at the steepest street in the world - San Francisco meets the southern hemisphere. Then it was off to Oamaru to see something I was to dying to see. PENGUINS, in their natural habitat! Unfortunately no one is allowed to take pictures but it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. We had to sit in this enclosure in the dark silently waiting for them to surf home for the evening. When the first ‘raft’ came in I was so choked. It was awesome. About 60 little blue penguins came in whilst the sunset and waddled up the beach to their home community. It was a very special moment. Now my New Zealand experience was definitely underway.

VERY VERY VERY SLOW!

After that we had another long evening drive up the coast to Christchurch Jen’s old home where we were to stay with some of her close friends while Jen did some more work. It was now the weekend again and time to chill out for a while. Christchurch is a funky little city, we ate in some cool restaurants, and went to some bizarre clubs where I witnessed some interesting dancing techniques, and saw gaggles of scantily clad screeching girls that brought back memories of Cardiff. Now I understood why Jen lived here. It was very much like our old home.

Next it was all the way back up to the north of the south island through Arthur’s Pass for more business in Nelson, then on to Blenheim and finally Kaikoura for my much anticipated whale watching expedition. We saw 6 sperm whales on our trip which is apparently good going. We also had time to stop and look for dusky dolphins and found a pod of 500 who rode the surf from our bow with us for around 20 minutes. This was the first time I’d seen so many dolphins in one place and it really took my breath away. I have some film footage I took with my camera that I can’t upload to this site but I’ll be more than happy to show anyone that’s interested.

Two of the six sperm whales we saw on our trip. Sperm whales have the largest brain of any animal, grow to about 20 meters long have been known to dive as deeply as 3,200 m. They can hold their breath up to an hour at each dive.

This photo is from my whale watching trip, but unfortunatley I didn't take it. Thanks to my fellow Czech passengers for this great shot.

Dusky Dolphin.

Then just when I thought the day couldn’t get any better, after stopping to take pictures of some sea lions on the way to our next destination I almost fell over this little fella…

A baby yellow eyed penguin, inches away from me and was posing his little heart out. I took so many photos of him but he didn’t budge. It was unbelievable. Honestly I couldn’t have had a better day for wildlife if I’d tried.

Then it was back to Christchurch, for more yummy food, good company and also a trip to Akaroa to swim with wild dolphins, another dream I’ve always had and couldn’t believe I was going to fulfill.

Sunset at Akaroa.

The dolphins we swam with were Hector’s dolphins, one of the smallest endangered dolphins in the world (1.2 m). It was another amazing New Zealand experience. Unfortunately the visibility was awful so you couldn’t see the dolphins under water well at all. This breed are also much shyer compared to the dusky dolphins we encountered during the whale watch expedition so they were quite difficult to interact with. However they seemed intrigued by me as I played with them by making a clicking sound with my rings underwater so they spent a lot of time circling me drawn to the sound. For anyone lucky enough to find themselves in Akaroa, I don’t recommend the company I went with. For such an amazing experience they wouldn’t take any pictures for me to remember the experience by. Other companies such as Black Cat do but were unfortunately fully booked that day.

Here is what the dolphins looked like though, and hopefully my memory is enough for me to take away with me.

It was now time to head back to Queenstown, for another break for Jen and for her to set up more showings at stores in the north island. It was now getting close to the beginning of the snowboard season and Gareth had called to say that the first snows had begun. Jen was ecstatic, but for those of you who know me well, I hate snow. I hate the cold, and am generally a moany bastard about it, but it didn’t stop Jen doing her best to convert me into a snowboarding enthusiast. Bless her. She failed miserably,. Wearing all of Gareth’s snowboarding gear (he’s 6’4’’) and looking and feeling like a big black Mitchilin Man I was driven to the top of the aptly named Remarkables in search of snow and learning slopes. When we arrived there were several cute, foxy accomplished snowboarders playing around on rails in the area where Jen wanted me to learn, so being a crap girl I of course chickened out. I stayed just far enough away to flirt with the boys and let Jen do all the falling over. Maybe next time.

Cute boys doing tricks.

One thing I did love though was Off Roading! Arrowtown, a neighboring village to Queenstown, is a great place to take Gareth and Jen’s 4x4 off road literally, plunging through the streams and rocky terrain. I had a great time and got to see the spot where Arwen with sick Frodo calls the river to swallow up the Ringwraiths in the first movie LOTR movie (apologies again for being so sad, I can’t help myself). It was really cool!

Off Roading in Arrow Town!

My time in New Zealand was now coming to an end and as I still wanted to squeeze in more time with Clare and Paddy I had to leave Jen and fly back up north, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Fog had enveloped the town and planes weren’t taking off or landing so I ended up being stuck for a couple of days. Apparently this is a common occurrence, which is weird as you would think that a town which relies on it’s tourism during snow season,would have managed to come up with alternate arrangements for such a common problem but no.

Finally after a very sad farewell I caught my plane and was back in Mt Maunganui for my last few days to chill with my good friends CJ and Paddy, which turned out to have a bit more drama than expected. At 4.30am one morning Clare woke Paddy and I up and packed us off into the car in our pajamas to get away from the coast and head up to higher ground. She had been woken minutes before hand by her parents in England because the BBC had broadcast a Tsunami threat in our area in reaction to the earthquake in Indonesia. It was all very exciting but luckily it turned out to be an over reaction. We appeared to be the only people driving around in our jammies at that hour of the morning, apart from another English friend who had had the same news from home. Typical British media, over reacting as usual! Boo to the BBC, but hurray for Clare and her quick as fox instincts. If the situation had been as feared we would all be very thankful to her now.

Ironically enough the sea the next day was as flat as a pancake which was exceptionally annoying as this was to be my last chance at a surfing lesson. So apart from practicing to sit on the board and some arm wearying paddling practice, I didn’t get much done. It was now time to leave the southern hemisphere bound for my last stop California, where I promised to surf at Huntingdon beach in honour of Paddy.

Goodbye autumn, hello summer!

odd eh?